DanMachi Light Novel Volume 13/Synopsis
Volume 13 Prologue While the members of Bell's party were in the dungeon, the waitresses at the Hostess of Fertility were busy looking for Ryuu, who'd disappeared after leaving behind a letter. Chloe, who knew about Ryuu's past, started speculating as to what might've happened, though she was soon silenced by Lunoire who was worried about how Syr would react. As the two Cat People waitresses began blaming Bell, Mia appeared, yelling at the girls to get back to work. Now alone, Syr asked Mia about it, though the latter simply stated that she wouldn't know anything if Syr didn't know, adding that Ryuu was troublesome. Elsewhere, Ryuu recalled her time at the Hostess of Fertility, but she admitted that it wasn't enough to heal her wounds, knowing that the black flames of revenge were still burning in her heart. Unfortunately, those flames once again burned brightly when she encountered members of Evilus, making her ignore the voices of her allies as she chased after them. Chapter 1 At the edge of Rivira, people gathered to view the deceased body, with Bell's party joining the crowd as well. Once Bors concluded that the man's death was by another adventurer, a Werewolf claimed that the Gale had killed the man, and immediately after several others added that they had also seen her. Mikoto pointed out that the Gale was said to have died 5 years ago, to which Bors revealed that there was a rumor that the Guild and the Loki Familia were preparing to crush Evilus' base they had recently found. He then stated that the Gale killed those who were gray during her rampage, coming to the conclusion that she must've decided that the citizens of Rivira were guilty, causing the others to decide to kill her themselves. He was apprehensive at first but quickly changed his mind when he heard of the Gale's 80,000,000 valis bounty. Unable to believe that Ryuu was guilty, Bell stated that it was too soon to mark her as guilty, then asked the man how long he'd been living in Rivira. Bell was suspicious of the man because he believed that there was no way the man didn't remember Ryuu fighting with them against the Black Goliath three and a half months ago. Considering that no one else seemed to remember her, Bell believed the man to be lying that he'd seen the Gale. As Bell tried to voice his support for Ryuu, Aisha stopped him, and the party left the crowd to talk amongst themselves. When he tried to protest their actions, the others argued against him, nevertheless they liked how he was able to stand up for a friend who wasn't even a member of their Familia. The party then changed their location to Villy's Inn before continuing their discussion about the murder. To begin their discussion, Lili revealed that she and Daphne had inspected the body while Bell was arguing with the Rivira crowd, noticing that there were sharp cuts on his arms and legs in addition to the stab wounds on his body, with Aisha coming to the conclusion that she had cut the man's tendons so she could interrogate him. In addition to their observations, Daphne pointed out that someone else could've come along and killed the man to pin the blame on the Gale. While the others began making plans to find Ryuu, Aisha warned Bell of the possibility of the Elf being guilty as charged, telling him to be prepared if that was the truth. In Knossos, the Hermes Familia was busy fighting off the monsters that were there, and at the same time exploring the place as part of a group of Familia investigating it under the Guild's orders. As she helped fight off the monsters, Asfi complained about them, in addition to worrying about Ryuu, who'd run off after spotting a group of adventurers trying to run. Recalling Ryuu's past, Asfi noted that the Elf had a history with Evilus, and wondered if she was going to fall again. Chapter 2 Later on, Cassandra violently woke up from seeing a prophetic dream. They had decided to get some rest before heading with the subjugation squad and stayed in Villy's Inn to do so. Unable to calm herself, she went deeper into the caves, repeatedly threw up in a cavity near the wall, and washed her mouth with water from a barrel nearby. While she did so, Villy appeared, complaining about Bors, though she declined his offer of help, rushing to inform the others of her prophecy. Unfortunately, as always, none of the others believed her, and even Bell rejected her proposal, stating that he wanted to help Ryuu. Hearing this, Cassandra's body lost strength, causing Daphne to catch her as she collapsed. Daphne offered to stay behind to take care of her, nevertheless Cassandra vehemently refused her offer, knowing that she needed to go with them if she was to prevent her prophecy from occurring. Normally she would've stayed behind but she had come to know what type of people they were and became unable to abandon them. Around three hours after they decided on killing Ryuu, the subjugation group, made up of half of the citizens of Rivira plus a number of other adventurers, left for the 19th Floor. However, even after searching for a half a day, they found no traces of Ryuu, despite searching every floor and posting guards at the entrances. As they took a break on the 21st Floor, Cassandra took the time to try to figure out what the prophecy meant, prompting Bell to tell her that she could discuss her thoughts with him if she needed to, nonetheless before she could do so four Mammoth Fools attacked, forcing Bell to help fight them. She took the opportunity to make a certain request to Welf, who agreed to it, ordering Lili to give him her Goliath Robe so he could work with it. On the surface, Hestia sprawled her upper body on the table, chatting with Miach who was busy moving stuff into the Hestia Familia home. Due to the fact that her entire Familia was out on the expedition, the Miach and Takemikazuchi Familias took turns guarding the Hearth Mansion, with Hephaestus sending Tsubaki to help out. However, Tsubaki had apparently shut herself in Welf's workshop to work on something, leaving the others to do the guarding. Eventually, the topic of their conversation shifted to Cassandra and her prophesying, noting that she was able to see things that even the Gods couldn't. Soon after, a letter from Lili arrived, informing them of the recent events and causing Hestia to wonder what was happening when she read the supporter's request for reinforcements. Back in the dungeon, the subjugation party continued with their searching, and this time an explosion sounded once they reached the 24th Floor. Immediately, the whole group rushed to the 25th Floor, from which they deduced that the explosions were coming from the 27th Floor, splitting their party into an attack squad and a watch squad. Cassandra tried to reason with her companions again, this time Daphne agreeing but for a different reason, her efforts having some success as Lili decided everyone except for Bell and Aisha would stay behind. She continued to try to have only Bell go, though unfortunately the others didn't agree, nevertheless Bell helped her by asking Aisha to stay behind to keep her eyes on the Werewolf that he thought was lying. Before he left, Welf gave him the Goliath Muffler which he and Cassandra made by cutting off a portion of Lili's Goliath Robe, and Bell promised Cassandra that he would return. Chapter 3 When Ryuu saw the Evilus members in Knossos, black flames of revenge flared inside her heart, enraging her because of the fact that they were still alive and vowing to end it for good. While she ran through the dungeon, she thought about the three people who were able to hold her hand, and wondered what the third person would think if he saw her now. In the lower floors, the party handpicked by Bors rushed down to the 27th Floor, all the while fighting against the monsters that tried to attack them in the process. Once there, they split into several groups, with Bell a part of Bors' 5 man group. As they searched around, one of the members found a large hole in the ceiling of a passageway, appearing to have been dug through by something. Up above, Aisha was beginning to get tired of watching the Werewolf, who was called Tark Sled, coming to the conclusion that it'd be faster to attack first and ask questions later. When her idea was rejected by the rest of the group, she suggested dragging him into a passageway to rape him into confessing, but that idea was rejected by a red faced Haruhime. Suddenly, the Werewolf in question tried to rouse the others into killing Ryuu, however his efforts only got him 3 people, and the four of them quickly left for the 27th Floor. Seeing this, the rest of the Hestia Familia expedition party followed after them. Looking up at the hole in the ceiling, the group speculated on what could've caused it, when all of a sudden they heard singing coming from somewhere. Bell, realizing what the cause was, left the group behind and found Marie, who informed him that there was something that didn't belong in the lower floors. With her help, he managed to locate Ryuu, who was standing in a room that looked like an explosion had happened, with a bloody Dwarf at her feet. Shocked by her expression, Bell said her name, then tried to ask her about the situation, but was cut off as the Elf angrily demanded to know why he was there. She then tried to get him to leave, telling him to not get involved, and when he tried to ask her about the Dwarf, she stated that people like him should be left behind to be killed by monsters. Shocked again by the completely different side of her he was seeing, he stood there staring at the passageway she disappeared into until Marie's voice brought him back to his senses. Quickly giving the Dwarf first aid, he carried the man with him as he chased after the Elf, still not understanding the situation. Intentionally forcing an unwilling Marie to stay behind by traveling down a passageway with no waterway, he was guided by the sound of another explosion to a similar room, this time with the attack squad gathered around several bodies. One of them, Jura Halmer, turned out to be alive, and he begged the attack squad to help him. When Bors recognized him as a member of the Rudra Familia, he admitted it but claimed that he hadn't done anything wrong since then, adding that he'd been hiding in a labyrinth. Realizing that the labyrinth Jura was talking about was Knossos, Bell figured out what was happening, though he didn't know what to think of it. On the 25th Floor, the rest of the expedition party had joined Tark's group, as being together from the beginning was better than them finding out that they were being tailed. Nevertheless, the group was suspicious of them, asking them how long they were going to be with them. Down below, Bors decided that they'd hand in Jura to the Guild in addition to killing Ryuu in order to get a reward for both of them. Feeling that something was wrong, he coincidentally hit a crimson shard with his boot, picking it up to look at it, but before he could examine it, Ryuu appeared, intent on finishing Jura off. The attack squad was completely unable to stop her, and out of his fear of the Elf, Jura ran off to escape. While he attempted to stop her, Bors began to recall seeing Ryuu at the Goliath battle, but his train of thought was abruptly stopped by Ryuu's wooden sword hitting him and sending him head first into a wall. Using the cries of monsters and Ryuu's chanting as a guide, Bell ended up in a huge room where he found both Ryuu and Jura. Noticing his presence, Jura immediately began begging for the boy to help him, prompting Bell to refuse to allow Ryuu to attack him unless she answered his questions. Reluctant at first, Ryuu eventually admitted that she was the one who cut off one of Jura's ears and part of his right arm, finally revealing that she wasn't the one who killed the recently deceased people. Satisfied by her answer, he began examining Jura's body, and upon doing so, he realized that the parts Ryuu mentioned were old wounds and the newer wounds were self inflicted to frame her. He also recalled the Cat People's words, noting it was strange that Ryuu left them alone after attacking them, and to conclude his deduction, he showed Jura the crimson shard, which he knew was kaenseki as Welf had shown it to him when he first visited his workshop. Knowing that he couldn't convince Bell any longer, Jura forced him away with his Crimson Whip, then revealed his true personality, mentioning that everyone was useless, adding that Tark and his group had caused the explosions too early. Ryuu told Jura to surrender, nonetheless he simply laughed it off, reminding her that he was a tamer, and summoned the Lambton, a giant snake monster with three eyes. Sometime earlier, Tark's group had attacked the rest of the expedition group, annoyed by their presence as they couldn't follow through with the plan with them there. Tark also wielded a Crimson Whip which he used to summon a different Lambton to kill them. At the Room of Prayer, Ouranos was listening to Fels' report on Knossos' monster storage room through an occulus. Although there weren't any Xenos, Fels reported that there were countless monsters in cages stored there, all under the effects of some sort of magic item as the mage didn't get much of a reaction from them when he approached the cages. Finding a list of the monsters, he skimmed through it, noticing that there were many strong monsters from the middle and lower floors, and that Evilus was conducting some sort of experiment with them. At the end of the room, Fels noted that they had also captured monsters from the deep floors, evident from the two giant and broken cages in front of him with their inhabitants missing. Chapter 4 Following the Lambton's arrival, Jura revealed that he had taken it from Knossos, asking Bell whether he knew about the monster's specific behavior, causing him to remember that they could move between floors by digging through the ground. Up above, Aisha was explaining the same thing to the rest of the expedition party, who were surprised that such a monster existed. Although Bell and Ryuu were dealing with their Lambton somewhat well, the expedition party, with their lower levelled members, struggled against theirs, leaving Aisha no choice but to order Haruhime to use Kokonoe. Back on the 27th Floor, Jura began revealing his plan and the recent events to the two he was fighting, mentioning that they'd given up on Knossos ever since Bell defeated the Ikelos Familia, and had begun to formulate the plan as they no longer had anywhere safe left to go to. They ended up having to put their plan into motion two days earlier due to the Familia alliance investigating the man made dungeon, and that was when they were found by Ryuu. He attempted to use the talk as a distraction, though he failed, and after Bell hit the monster with a 20 second charged Firebolt, Ryuu completely overpowered it using her skill Aero Mana, sending it into a wall where it collapsed and stopped moving. Above, the expedition party had also managed to defeat their Lambton by using Kokonoe and damaging its heat receptors, with Aisha finishing it using Hell Kaios. Bell and Ryuu confronted Jura, expecting him to surrender, but instead he started laughing, revealing that he was simply a decoy and that Tark's group was to finish with the preparations. Sure enough, Tark and his group set fire to the kaenseki they'd been scattering on the 25th Floor, causing one huge chain explosion that was enough to destroy a whole section of the floor. Enraged upon realizing what Jura was trying to do, Ryuu attempted to kill him, only for Bell to stop her before she could do so. The dungeon began to cry, causing Ryuu to remember the despair, and the dungeon soon spawned the Juggernaut. Chapter 5 Elsewhere, both Bors' group and Marie were frightened by the dungeon's cry, the latter especially fearful as she remembered that it had happened once before 5 years earlier. The Juggernaut quickly began making its way through the 27th Floor, killing any and all adventurers it came across in one hit. One adventurer tried to attack it with a magic sword but it simply reflected it back at him, killing him with his own attack, and in the end the Juggernaut killed more than 50 adventurers. Ouranos, sensing that the Juggernaut had spawned, and Jura, excited that his plan was a success, began talking about the monster to Fels and Bell and Ryuu respectively. Ever since the Juggernaut appeared 5 years ago and massacred the Astraea Familia and Evilus members, he had been engrossed with it, intent on taming it with his Crimson Whip and making it his own in order to get rid of Ryuu once and for all. As Bell tried to leave to help the others, she stopped him, begging him not to fight it. Hearing this, Jura taunted Ryuu, mentioning that she most likely didn't want to kill her companions again, and revealed that she had sacrificed her companions to drive it off 5 years earlier. Soon after, Bors and the remaining members of the attack squad came running into the room, the Juggernaut itself on their tail. Once in the room, the monster began killing off the adventurers at tremendous speed, the adventurers unable to do anything to prevent their swift deaths. Seeing that the Juggernaut was about to target the members of the 5 man party he was a part of, Bell refused to let it kill them, grabbing a greatsword on the ground and attacking with it. Although the monster blocked his attack, he succeeded in shifting its attention from the party members to himself, and the monster recognized him as a threat that needed to be eliminated. The two fought, with Bell figuring out that its endurance was low compared to its strength and speed. When the greatsword he was using was destroyed, he opted to use his Firebolt instead, Ryuu's warning coming too late as the magic was reflected back and hit him directly. Caught off guard by his Firebolt being reflected back at him, he couldn't react as the Juggernaut severed his right arm from the elbow, the arm flying into a nearby waterway, still holding the Hestia Knife tightly. Bell tried to parry its attacks with his armor but it was no use; the Juggernaut's attacks easily destroyed his armor piece by piece, even though they were made from Dil Adamantite, a metal that was able to block Asterius' attacks. The Juggernaut finished him off by hitting his neck with its tail, sending him flying and stopping right next to a waterway. Unable to believe her eyes, Ryuu watched as Bell's body flew through the air and stopped, then rushed over to him. She feared he was dead, but was surprised when she saw that he was still breathing, and immediately began tending to his wounds. Despite this, once the Juggernaut resumed its slaughter of the Rivira adventurers, she didn't know whether she should keep healing Bell or help them. In the end, she began attacking the monster as soon as Noah Heal finished casting, nevertheless the monster easily destroyed her wooden sword and knocked her down to the ground. Trying to take advantage of the opening, Bors ordered the remaining adventurers to unleash their magic on it, and once again Ryuu's warning was too late as their magic was reflected back, killing almost all of them. His mind clouded with fear, Bors begged for his life. Fortunately for him, Ryuu blocked the attack meant for him and ordered him to run, her appearance causing Bors to recall that she'd been a part of the battle against the Black Goliath. Continuing with its attacks, the Juggernaut's next attack cut her shoulder open, and despite the intense pain she felt, she ordered him to hurry. Just as she managed to let him escape, her right leg was hit by the monster's tail, bending it and sending her flying. Thinking she was finished, she was surprised to see Bell standing with a strong will in his eyes, his body completely healed with his arm reattached due to Marie's Mermaid Blood. Abandoning his previous strategy, he decided to fight the Juggernaut head on, even though it was extremely dangerous, using his Goliath Muffler and Hestia Knife to parry its attacks. Even though he was parrying its attacks, the force still caused damage to his body, his body radiating pain and dripping blood. Eventually, the Juggernaut decided to put some space between itself and the boy, which was exactly what he was hoping for, casting 17 Firebolts at it at once. He rushed into the reflected Firebolts, capturing one with his dual charge, using the rest as camouflage, and rushed to hit it with Argo Vesta. The attack confused the Juggernaut, as it didn't know if it was a magic or physical attack, or whether it should block it or attack instead. It ultimately decided to evade the attack, though it took too long to come to its decision, allowing Bell to throw one end of his Goliath Muffler and catch its tail with it, stopping it from escaping. Coming to the conclusion that Argo Vesta was neither a magic or a physical attack, and that it couldn't be guarded against, the Juggernaut decided to attack the boy instead. Bell unleashed his nine second charge attack, completely destroying its right arm, part of its tail, and its outer shell along with damaging its body. As Bell was about to go over to the Juggernaut to finish it off, Jura appeared, attaching the collar portion of the Crimson Whip to the monster to control it, ordering it to kill them. Although he succeeded, the monster considered him a bother and ripped his body in half with the remainder of its tail. Right after, the Lambton they thought they'd defeated appeared, also under the effects of Jura's last order, and swallowed both Bell and Ryuu, burrowing down into the dungeon. The Juggernaut followed after them, leaving Marie alone in the room. On the 25th Floor, Cassandra refused to let Lili go down to the 27th Floor, desperately holding onto her arm to prevent the Hestia Familia from going deeper into the dungeon despite the others' efforts to try to stop her. Unfortunately, the dungeon, noticing that the Juggernaut had left the Water City even though there were still adventurers left, decided to ignore the remaining half month interval for the Amphisbaena and spawned it. Immediately, the Amphisbaena began rising up the waterfall, soon arriving at the 25th Floor. Chapter 6 During the time he was inside the Lambton, Bell repeatedly cast Firebolt until the monster collapsed, cut its body from inside with the Hestia Knife, then ripped it open to free himself. Being inside its body had subjected him to its stomach acid, dissolving parts of his skin, his clothes, and even his hair, only managing to survive the experience because of his high level. He dragged Ryuu out of its body, repeatedly calling her name in an attempt to get her to regain consciousness, but before he could feel relieved that her eyebrows twitched, he heard a monster's cry, bringing him back to reality. As he tried to figure out where they were, he quickly realized that they were on the 37th Floor, the realization bringing despair to his heart. Category:DanMachi Synopses